On the spot in the woods where Thoreau had his solitary
house is now quite a cairn of stones, to mark the place; I too carried
one and deposited on the heap. As we drove back, saw the "School of
Philosophy," but it was shut up, and I would not have it open'd for
me. Near by stopp'd at the house of W.T. Harris, the Hegelian, who
came out, and we had a pleasant chat while I sat in the wagon. I shall
not soon forget those Concord drives, and especially that charming
Sunday forenoon one with my friend Miss M., and the white ponies.
BOSTON COMMON--MORE OF EMERSON
_Oct. 10-13._--I spend a good deal of time on the Common, these
delicious days and nights--every mid-day from 11.30 to about 1--and
almost every sunset another hour. I know all the big trees, especially
the old elms along Tremont and Beacon streets, and have come to a
sociable silent understanding with most of them, in the sunlit air,
(yet crispy-cool enough,) as I saunter along the wide unpaved walks.
Up and down this breadth by Beacon street, between these same old
elms, I walk'd for two hours, of a bright sharp February mid-day
twenty-one years ago, with Emerson, then in his prime, keen,
physically and morally magnetic, arm'd at every point, and when he
chose, wielding the emotional just as well as the intellectual. During
those two hours he was the talker and I the listener. It was an
argument-statement, reconnoitring, review, attack, and pressing home,
(like an army corps in order, artillery, cavalry, infantry,) of
all that could be said against that part (and a main part) in the
construction of my poems, "Children of Adam.
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